Vintage Screw Jacks, Post here.

[wrenchguy]

A old pair hell4stout unmarked ratchet jacks using 1" round handles & being 15" tall retracted. 9" OD base, 4"OD pad, weighing 42 lbs. each. Anyone recognize 'em?

 

[Oregon rock crusher]

I recognize the style for sure wrenchguy and do like that ratcheting version of a screw jack. Without casting marks it will be hard to ever say. Here is a cut from a 1930 H Channon catalog showing the style but not naming the manufacturer. They do show other specific branded jacks in the same catalog including these heavy duty Duff Norton jacks. I have a pair of the 35 tonners. Come in handy for lifting one end of a heavy crusher frame where we couldnt get a loader to it. Ed.

 

[wrenchguy]

Bell base, instead of bell bottoms. Oh well thanks for correct terminology given by ad. .

 

[Shiftless]

Here is my baby Simplex jack

 

[Shiftless]

Here is another one I have and actually use from time to time. It’s a DUFF made in Pittsburg PA.
Seems to be original paint. I picked it up at a estate sale and just cleaned, greased, and refreshed the paint with a thin coat of boiled linseed oil.

The Duff company merged with Norton in 1928 (to form Duff-Norton of course) so this jack is at least 94 years old.

 

[don long]

I collected them for a while


Here are a couple that stand out in my collection

 

[wrenchguy]

My duff-norton 25 tonner well over 200lbs. Lost dirty paper i had on it. Haven't touched or looked at it in years. It aggravates my hernia just thinking bout it.
ORC, do these big duff nortons have screw mechanisms internally? Trying to keep this thread from going cog lift or hydraulic. Ryan has a super vintage floor jack thread going. Thanks

 

[Oregon rock crusher]

Nice jacks Shiftless. I really like the little guy. Reminds me of the small ones used on milling tables. Nice collection Don. I've seen those Vulcans before but don't think I've picked one up.

Those big heavy ******* Duff Norton's are definitley screw jacks wrenchguy. You can raise or lower them just by spinning the outer housing. That's how I got mine broke loose and free enogh to use after I rescued them from a scrap pile about 30 years ago minutes before they got loaded in the bin. I used to load them by myself into the back of the PU. Not any more. Ed.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Here is my baby Simplex jack

Shifty - I just found on of these today and I am very curious to see what's on the other side of the bottle on yours. Does it look like this?



Link to more photos and info here...

The Lugzsonian - A Virtual Tour

Which made me figure out what was wrong. When they say the format is 1000000, they mean it. Literally! You have to fill out missing digits with 0's or it will return nulls. I hate those guys. We have a dB at work where the damn month and day fields have that requirement. No warning, just...

www.garagejournal.com

 

[Shiftless]

Lugz:
Mine is different
Stand by for detailed pics.
I have a tattered but still readable original cardboard box for it.

 

[Oregon rock crusher]

Nice commemorative baby simplex Lugz. I guess these little guys have been around quite a while. Love that you have the box with yours too Shiftless. I think mine may be newer with the red paint. Here's the only pic I have on file of it. Ed.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Mine is different
Stand by for detailed pics.

Thanks. That blank other side helps confirm my hunch about mine being a souvenir from the 1934 World's Fair.

I have a tattered but still readable original cardboard box for it.

That is fantastic! It's interesting that it reads, "Jack in a Box." The period ads terminology is "Jack-in-the-Box." Odder still, Templeton Kenly trademarked that exact phrasing ("Jack-in-the-Box") in 1973 and claimed first use in... wait for it... 1972!



We know better (by your box - and reams of period ads from the late 1920's and 1930's) than their own front office that they were using it long before 1972.

I guess these little guys have been around quite a while.

My research has turned up ads in numerous trade mags between 1927 and 1935. I cannot find any earlier or later, but it wouldn't surprise me if the production outstripped the ads on the later end. It sure looks to me like they introduced it in 1927 and then made a big splash out of them at the World's Fair in their home city and on their 50th anniversary in 1934, and were still making them at least as late as 1935. But again, no evidence after that yet.

What's cool about them is that they were made and sold as an advertising novelty and a real jack at the same time. Everything from the "Jack-in-the-Box" name to the ad copy makes that very clear. They go out of their way to stress its utility, listing a number of uses, but make no bones about it being a "reproduction of the larger Simplex Screw Jacks" and state that its purpose is "to demonstrate and advertise the safety feature and power" of the larger jacks. "For the Home, Work Shop, Manual Training or a Xmas Gift." Shiftless's box, where the image of the jack is marked "A Simplex Souvenir", helps confirm that, too.

I think mine may be newer with the red paint.

It may be newer, but I wouldn't be too hasty to make that determination only on the color of that finish. The ads instruct buyers to pick between "red, blue or green Duco" initially (at least through 1931), and it was the orange that was added later. The only ad I can find that offers them in orange is 1935.

Here are some examples from 1927, 1929, 1930 and 1935.

Note the 1935 ad clearly confirming my World's Fair "sensation" souvenir.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Since I didn't post a photo of my whole jack here...

 

[leg17]

Lugz these may have been give-aways at the World's Fair.
Toolmaker sized.
I have run across them in the shops and most have been pressed into service and have lost that original charm.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Lugz these may have been give-aways at the World's Fair.

Agreed. I was probably less explicit about that above in this thread, referring to them vaguely as souvenirs. But complimentary, for visiting their booth in the Hall of Science, is what I was originally thinking when I first reported this flea market find on the Garage Sale thread yesterday, here....

think these little bottle jacks may have been giveaways at the 1934 World's Fair, but they're real, not fake. I'll probably do a little research and a write-up in my thread

I have been as of yet unable to verify that, though.

I'm glad you have the same thought, though, and glad you shared it. Gives my hunch a little more credence. Also helping, I think, is the manner of their introduction in 1927. They were not free, per se, but note that TK Co was providing them "at cost" to their customers in the railroad business. It smacks of the same motivation.

 

[Oregon rock crusher]

Really nice vintage adds you posted Lugz. I haven't had mine very long and hadn't looked online for info yet so good to see them. Here are close up pics of both sides of my little guy that show the script. Capable of useful work but spared from it so far.....